Best and Worst US Person of 2006

In the mode of Stephen Colbert, it's time to do a "wave of the finger, tip of the hat." Since I felt so alienated by the course of Canadian politics this year until the last month with the election of Stéphane Dion as Liberal leader, I couldn't really pick a best and worst Canadian. So instead, here's my pick for the worst and best US person of 2006.

Worst: Bob Ney, the former Republican Congressman from Ohio. He got caught up in a number of kickback schemes that got the king of lobbyists, Jack Abramoff, into so much trouble. I thought Tom Delay was wretched, but he was one of the causes of the disease called the "K-Street Project." Ney was the disease and leached on it. To be fair, he was much more aligned with the moderate wing of the GOP than the liberal; but the guy who created "Freedom Fries" and "Freedom Toast" still made friends in all the wrong places. He's expected to testify against some pretty high people in the new year in exchange for a reduced sentence ... and given the fact that he was less than honest about his ties to Abramoff until recently, one can only anticipate who else he's going to say was less than honest about their ties to Abramoff. (Hint: GB in WH.)

Best: Keith Olbermann, the former conservative sportscaster and news commentator turned liberal, now host of Countdown on MSNBC. In a series of commentaries -- some directed at his archenemy Bill O'Reilly, the rest at the Bush Administration -- Olbermann became the last angry man. In a sense, he is partly like Howard Beale, the "mad as hell" anchor in the 1976 film Network. Unlike Beale, however, Olbermann never resorted to histrionics but used the cold hard facts to make his case -- and in a dead serious voice. His analyses on the Malmédy Massacre, the 9/11 attacks and Dubya's emaciation of habeas corpus were especially devastating. He has established himself as Edward R Murrow's true heir -- something badly needed in broadcasting.

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UK repays debt to Canada, US

An item in yesterday's International Herald Tribune served as a reminder that a debt, no matter large or small, must be eventually repaid in some manner. The news was that the UK made its final installment on the post- World War II loans for reconstruction, money borrowed from the United States and Canada. The amount: $100 million US.

I mentioned a little while back Jim Flaherty wants to get rid of the "net debt" rather than actually pay it off in full. Kind of like the Brits just paying the interest on the debt from the Napoleonic Wars than just putting it to rest as well ... because apparently the interest is cheaper than the redemption costs. At least, though, Westminster gets it.

When this is all I find worthy to comment on other than last night's execution of Saddam Hussein, it tells you the kind of day it's been.

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Execution of Saddam Hussein

We may be as little as an hour away, as I write these words, from the execution of Saddam Hussein. I remain, as I have been since the age of fourteen, completely opposed to capital punishment. Will I be, however, sorry to see him go? To be bland about it, no ... but as when Julius Caesar was assassinated, "I fear there will a worse come in his place."

From his brutal suppression of the Kurds to his wars in Iran and Kuwait (and even a brief incursion into Saudi Arabia) as well as his sabre rattling against the United Arab Emirates, not to mention his unrepentant anti-Semitism, Mr. Hussein was a truly wretched fellow. Certainly anything but insane but very psychotic. I'm sure he'll be more than welcome in the company of creeps like Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Pol Pot and Idi Amin in the afterlife.

While I would have much preferred Hussein to just do the world a favour and commit suicide to spare Iraqis the expense of purchasing a strand of manila rope, the fact is his execution will solve nothing. On the contrary, it will make the civil war in Iraq even worse and even if the country manages to stay together when it's all over the end result will be three or more ethnic and cultural regions under the sphere of Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Syria -- with the Turkoman and Kurdish peoples potentially drawn under that of Turkey, the only truly democratic Muslim country in the world.

The security implications are already frightening enough with him alive. I shudder to think of what it will be like when he's dead.

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Kingsley quits

Late yesterday, Canada's Chief Electoral Officer, Jean-Pierre Kingsley, tendered his resignation to the Speakers of the House of Commons and the Senate two years before the compulsory retirement age of 65. He had been on the job for seventeen years and during that time presided over five elections, a national referendum and dozens of by-elections.

His most significant reform was the permanent voters' list. No longer were people enumerated door to door every election; instead the list is now updated through income tax records (via a voluntary check off) and provincial vital statistics. Some say this has led to a decline in voter turnout because there is no longer that personal contact from non-partisan local people who remind voters "that time" is coming. In the modern age of communcation, however, door-to-door information gathering become rather quaint. I actually participated in the final enumeration in 1997 gathering information from my neighbours, and people seemed actually enthusiastic that Canada was getting out of the Stone Age.

Kingsley also kept politicians on their toes, constantly reminding them about the rules and the need to change them not for their own benefit but for that of the democratic process ... and was also a dedicated researcher, not only leading Canadian observation of elections in emerging democracies but putting out numerous newsletters about what works and what doesn't. For example, he issued a cautionary tale not that long ago about the pratfalls of voting online.

Kingsley made the job of election referee fun when it is anything but, and in that respect Stephen Harper will have a very difficult choice to make to nominate a successor. Since the job is one of a handful that requires ratification by Parliament since it and not the Government is the employer (among the others are the Auditor-General and the Information and Privacy Commissioners) Harper is duty bound to consult with the opposition leaders to find someone who can fill the post without any bias whatsoever, as the Chief Electoral Officer is actually required by law to waive his or her right to vote during the term in office. Given an election can happen at any time, he has to act fast and the appointee ready to go at the provocation of a sneeze.

No matter what personal feelings Harper may have about Kingsley he can't get revenge by appointing a hack. The job in question is not a patronage appointment. Unlike other countries -- even many parts of the United States -- elections here are seen as clean and we need to continue that. That goes without saying but it still needs to be said.

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Ford opposed Iraq War

Watergate refuses to die and some of the people involved directly or indirectly with it.

In today's edition of the Washington Post, Bob Woodward -- still the two most feared words in DC and who helped expose the affair -- reveals something that could be very embarrassing for George W. Bush who just yesterday praised Gerald R. Ford for "healing" the country. In an interview conducted during the 2004 election but "embargoed" until now, Woodward (who conducted the interview for a forthcoming book but was free to release the tapes upon Ford's passing as per their agreement) now reveals Ford felt the Iraq war was a mistake. More shocking were Ford's extremely critical words for Dubya, Cheney (Ford's chief of staff) and even Rumsfeld (who served as Secretary of Defense under Ford three decades before his second go under GWB) -- although Ford spoke with fondness about his time with them during the 1970s.

Ford took issue with Bush's belief (along with many televangelists who support him) that it's his God-given duty to spread democracy throughout the Middle East. Here's the money quote: "Well, I can understand the theory of wanting to free people. Whether you can detach that from the obligation number one, of what's in our national interests, there comes a point where they conflict. And I just don't think we should go hellfire damnation around the globe freeing people, unless it is directly related to our own national security." [Emphasis added.] Ford said if it was up to him, he would have given sanctions against Iraq as well as inspections more time. Way, way more time.

It could be because the United States was bitten by Vietnam, but it seems only Ford learned the lessons of that terrible war -- um, police action.

Ford also explained why, in 1975, he stripped Henry Kissinger of his national security advisor role (he was both the NSA as well as Secretary of State). As he saw it, the role of a security chief is to provide unbiased advice on foreign policy, free from the taint of bias that can often come from the Defense and State Departments as well as the CIA. By wearing two hats, Henry Kissinger was trying to play the field both ways and thus his advice was anything but unbiased.

Ford also touches on his decision to drop Nelson Rockefeller, his Vice-President, late in the 1976 election and replacing him with Bob Dole, who himself ran against Slick Willy Clinton 20 years later. Ford told Woodward he regretted making that decision, saying he had caved into the religious right who vowed to sit at home rather than vote for a ticket that included a liberal Republican from New York.

Without saying it directly Woodward -- himself a Republican -- appears to imply that decision may have set the stage for the right wing's takeover of the GOP in 1980 and its dominance of the agenda and platform ever since. Push a little, move a mountain -- rather than one's faith being able to move a mountain.

I am troubled by one aspect. It's not about Ford's pardon of Nixon, which Woodward also discusses in today's edition (and I agree with Woodward there never was a quid pro quo.) Nor is it about whether the pardon was responsible for Ford losing in 1976 (it wasn't, it was the way the war ended as well as the step-ladder inflation that plagued not just Ford but many other Western leaders at the time).

No ... it's the fact Ford never could find it within himself to make his criticisms public while he was alive.

Other Presidents weren't afraid to so criticize their colleagues. Reagan regularly bashed Carter throughout his Presidency with his "Morning in America" crap rather than taking Carter's counsel to make America energy independent by 2000. (Instead, Rumsfeld and Cheney who later served under Reagan coddled Iraq as well as the Taliban -- decisions which had ramifications for later years. I remain convinced that had the West gotten off Middle East oil by now, 9/11 would never have happened -- or it could have been stopped.) Reagan was also not afraid to take shots at Clinton before being elected and just weeks after Slick was inaugurated Reagan actually took out an op-ed piece in the NYT slamming Clinton's policies.

Carter has not been afraid to regularly criticize efforts by both Republican and Democratic administrations to undermine his peacemaking efforts. Heck, even Bush 43 condemned Reagan for pulling the Marines out of Beirut after the barracks bombing that killed 200 + of the "Few Good Men" -- and women.

So why Ford's silence? Maybe because he understood that as having been not elected as either President or Vice-President, he never had a real mandate and thus had less authority to speak out than other people. Or maybe it's because Congress reclaimed a lot of its powers during his time in office and Ford was trying to restore the balance -- which Cheney and Rumsfeld believed undermined the Executive. (Of course, under their watch and 43's, the pendulum has swung even further than it did under Nixon to the point where Congress became a rubber stamp.)

Maybe it was just his personality. Nearly everyone who has eulogized him, on both sides of the aisle, has spoken of him as a genuinely nice guy, never rude or overly critical and never using a cuss word. But the opinion of ex-world leaders do carry moral force. Because so few human beings ever get to sit in the corner office -- whether in the political or business worlds -- those men and women know what it's like to have the burden of Atlas, so when they speak they do so with authority. There's a difference between being shrill, like Michael Moore can sometimes be, and being pointed and constructive with criticism.

I doubt Ford's words would have changed the 2004 election results that much, had such comments been "unembargoed." But a fair number of moderate Republicans might have been persuaded to switch their votes, enough that the Reagan Democrat era would have ended two years earlier than it did last month. President Bush also needs to seriously consider what Ford said in mulling over whether to send even more troops to Iraq. LBJ tried escalating Vietnam and we all know what happened there.

Still, Ford's words are truly haunting. We can only speculate, "If only ...", now.

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Is the CRTC independent, or isn't it?

Unlike the US FCC which answers only to the President but in fact acts at arms length from the government, the Canadian equivalent -- the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission, or CRTC, is at best a quasi-judicial panel. Moreover, while FCC decisions can be appealed in the courts, rulings from the CRTC can be appealed to the federal Cabinet.

Given how much previous and current governments have interfered with the regulators these past few years, according to the Canadian Press, it's little wonder there aren't many people lining up for the job of Chair. Or maybe it's because the gang in Hull simply don't get just how fast their jobs are becoming totally irrelevant in the marketplace.

Consider, for example, the recent Cabinet dictate that overturned the CRTC's ruling on VoIP -- the one that said alternate suppliers had to have at least 25% market share before they would consider allowing the traditional telcos to charge what they felt appropriate. It was a harebrained idea to begin with, because it's possible to use VoIP for free if you know how to download the proper software and have a high speed connection. The problem, however, is why the Cabinet got involved at all in the first place. The CRTC is trying to foster competition and as thanks they're told, screw you, we'll let the telcos smack down the cable companies and alternate suppliers.

Frankly, the 25% threshold was way too high -- I probably would have set it at half that -- but even then a partisan Cabinet is hardly the ideal forum to settle disputes. It should be left for another independent group, like the courts, to see if the CRTC broke its own rules or violated the laws of equity in establishing new ones.

In some other areas, however, the CRTC has just abdicated its responsibilities all together and in that respect has gone in the completely opposite direction from the FCC. Unlike its southern neighbour which cracked down on so-called "indecency," the attitude here is laissez-faire; with "regulation" being off-loaded to the private broadcasters themselves through something called the Canadian Broadcasting Standards Council while the CBC has its in-house Ombusdmen (one each for the French and English networks, with the power of the "other" to get involved in case of a conflict of interest). As a result, the boundary gets pushed back to the point where now it's anything goes after nine PM Eastern -- all the violence, gore and explicit sex the networks can throw at us.

The problem, as the Canadian Press points out, is that getting involved so directly as both Paul Martin and Stephen Harper have done, is that it undermines accountability -- and the ability of Canadians to point to who to blame for an irresponsible decision. Furthermore, as far as the airwaves go, it implies that the electromagnetic spectrum is the property of the Crown. It is not. It is owned by the people and leased to licensed operators in the hopes the public trust will not be abused.

I'm not saying get rid of the CRTC. We still need it to make sure broadcasters are playing by the rules. But its decisions should be a matter for the courts, not the politicians. The job of the politicians is to reduce the regulatory burden and ensuring that competition is fair -- no more or less.

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It's a big deal, whether Harper admits it or not

For months, Stephen Harper tried to argue that delegate fees to the Conservative convention did not constitute donations under the Canada Elections Act -- yet no sooner did he become Prime Minister than he attempted to change the rules to make such fees donations. This was a deliberate attempt to wipe out the Liberal Party which was gearing up for the convention earlier this month -- after all, he reasoned, the rules don't apply to him but he'll make it apply to his enemies.

The Chief Electoral Officer, Jean-Pierre Kingsley, didn't exactly care for Harper's explanation and demanded the Cons submit new financial statements to take into account the disputed delegate fees. Yesterday, Harper admitted his party broke the law and returned some excess donations to their respective contributors. The numbers: $539,915 in unreported donations, $913,750 in "other revenue" (whatever that is), and $1.45 million in "other expenses." More significant is that one of the contributors who broke the $5,400 contribution limit was none other than Harper himself. $456 over to be exact.

Does anyone expect Harper is going to get a sanction greater than a slap on the wrist? If an ordinary independent local candidate went over the spending limit in his or her district by so much as a dollar, s/he and his/her auditor would go to prison. If my reading of the statute is correct, the maximum penalty for this particular offence by an individual is five years imprisonment, a fine of $5000 plus, if the judge orders it, restitution. The Chief Electoral Officer could also, if he deems appropriate, liquidate the party's assets if it found to have deliberately filed a false financial statement.

In a minority situation, going that far would probably create a constitutional crisis. The law is the law however, and Harper should voluntarily pay the fine before he is ticketed or indicted.

What really gets me, though, is that with the new spending limits in the new year, the maximum contribution has been slashed all the way down to just $1100, with no inflation adjuster. Rest assured, money will be funneled in other ways -- whether it's through lobbyists or constituency associations -- even with a total ban on corporate and union donations. Had he gotten caught under the new rules, jail time would have been a given.

In the end, Harper's promise to run an ethical government has all been for naught. The Conservatives have proven to be just as crafty with accounting as the Liberals were in Sponsorgate. That can only lead to more cynicism and an even lower turnout come the next election. For shame.

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Gerald R Ford (1913-2006)

For all he did to heal the land, America and I dare say the world is eternally grateful. Rest in peace, Mr. President.

Manifest Destiny Redux

There's a shocking op-ed piece in today's edition of the Toronto Star. Written by Stéphan Kelly, it suggests what until recently was unthinkable: Growing discontent with the US South may prompt the northern states to secede from the Union and join ... Canada. Seriously.

This has no doubt been a dream for some Canadians who find a lot of affinity with their immediate border neighbours in terms of culture and religious values but think the South is in a world and class of its own and increasingly becoming a theocratic subempire. It's not like a merger is anything new, although it was the Americans who first expressed their dream of Manifest Destiny even before the term was coined. Under the first US Constitution, the Articles of Confederation, most US states had to apply for admission to the country -- but a specific exception was made for Canada, which was given an open invitation to join any time it wanted to. An argument can be made that while the present Constitution superceded most of the Articles, the specific clause in question (Article 11) is still in effect.

Kelly's thesis is basically the following, that because the North was at the start of America a collection of free states and the South slave, which later resulted in the Civil War, the country as a whole has never been able to shake off its demons. He cites the following examples:

• Franklin D. Roosevelt: Seen as a hero by those in the North and the West but viewed as no better than Stalin by most Southerners.
• Gun control: Heavily favoured by the North, opposed bitterly in the South.
• Criminal law: Tough on the causes of crime in the North, tough on crime (period) in the South.
• Military intervention: Viewed with skepticism in the North, a moral imperative in the views of the South.
• Religion: Separation of church and state in the North, no such thing in the South.

And on it goes. Kelly goes on to write that while many if not most Southerners still hate Canadians, the views of Northerners towards Canada actually softened after the American Revolution -- in part because of blood ties, but also because of trade. The Canadian union of 1867 actually upset these links because of John A. Macdonald's protectionist policies ... something that wasn't "corrected" until the AutoPact of the 1960s and later full free trade with the United States.

Kelly says that realistically for a union of Canada and the North (which he calls "fusion" rather than annexation) to occur, relations between North and South would have to worsen and the United States would lack a leader with the kind of national vision that Lincoln or FDR had. Further, separatism would have to be defeated in Québec once and for all; revisiting the 1982 Canadian Constitutional amendment as having been a failure (maybe the amending formula, but it'd be hard to do away with the mostly popular Charter of Rights); an energy crisis feeds into the North's desire to be energy independent (unlike most of the South, which probably doesn't care that oil is purchased from countries that sponsor terrorism or turn a blind eye to it); and people in Central Canada and the North say the migration of people to the US West Coast for better jobs has to stop.

My read on all of this?

It's a harebrained idea as much as Manifest Destiny has always been. But think about how the map of the US and Canada might wind up looking if fusionism takes off: Alberta and most of BC (except the Lower Mainland and most of the Gulf Islands and Victoria) would secede from Canada and join the United States. Meanwhile, the US West Coast, Hawaii, as well as the Blue States (and Ohio is back in the blue column after the 2006 midterms) would want to join the new "Northern North America" -- or maybe just keep the name Canada. There could also be enclaves within the South: It's not hard to imagine Dallas, Atlanta and Jacksonville among other Southern cities seceding from the United States and joining Canada if their economic interests dictated it.

I think a lot depends on the 2008 US election, and not just because America is at the crossroads. Once one domino drops it's impossible to stop the chain reaction unless there's an obstruction. World security depends largely on a peaceful North Atlantic, and that includes a peaceful Canada and a peaceful United States, two countries united within themselves but also associated with trade.

Fun theory that Kelly outlines, but it's fine as far as it goes. America needs to sort out its own problems first and they need to find their own common purpose without the "carrot" that a fusion of some states with Canada may offer.

My New Home

I'm back after my Christmas hiatus. For those of you who have been looking for me, I have moved my blog from its old home at MSN Live Spaces: http://blastfurnacecanada.spaces.live.com. Couple of reasons, first I was getting a bit annoyed at some extensive posts I was writing suddenly getting eaten up by the server for no apparent reason; second, a lot of you expressed your concerns that you didn't want to open up an MSN account just to post comments. That's fine ... since I had a Blogger account anyway, I decided this might be a better place to hang my shingle anyway.

For now, I'm just going to leave comments open to those of you with blogging accounts to cut down on the spam. Once I get a feel for the kinds of comments I am getting here, I may open the door.

I'm going to be fiddling with this a bit, too, to make sure the URL and XML feed is working then I'll resume my ranting.

Is all that there is? (Rona Ambrose edition)

The auto industry and Big Oil makes cars that can run on 85% ethanol. Diesel can be made from cooking oil and other organic food wastes, blended with the normal diesel oil, and produce much cleaner output (i.e. lower sulfur content) as well as boost horsepower. With that in mind, as well as the Conservatives' plan to only begin reducing air pollution in the year 2050, Environment Minister Rona Ambrose announced oil companies will only have to have 5 percent ethanol or 2 percent biodiesel in their fuel content -- by 2012.

When a previous Conservative government -- the Progressive Conservatives, under Mulroney -- got a report saying lead poisoning was running at a rampant pace in minors, Brian didn't hestitate. He pushed forward the phase out period for lead in gasoline a full three years, in fact he gave the oil firms barely a year to make the conversion. The companies quickly adapted and found less harmful lead substitutes in no time flat. Was Canada's economy damaged permanently because leaded fuel has been outlawed here these past 15 years? No.

The infrastructure exists to produce clean fuels. One of the majors is already at 10 percent ethanol and is the market leader in Diesel #2 which has 97 percent less sulfur than the old kind. They didn't need to be told to do it, they did it because it's smart business. What, are the other companies chicken? Or did they get a deal because they're in bed (monetarily as well as Biblically) with the powers that be in Ottawa right now?

The decline of religion in television

Years ago, Hollywood had codes for movies and television that drew the line at what was acceptable and what wasn't. The TV Code lasted well into the 1980s, but the movie code was done away with in the late 1960s and it's worth pointing out the first winner of the Best Picture Oscar after that was dropped was the X-rated Midnight Cowboy. But let's stick with television for the purposes of this post. For most of the history of television, from just after World War II until, say, the mid 80s, ministers were regarded as people to be looked up to and it wasn't seen as a taboo for people to ask for divine intervention or even guidance to help with the struggles of daily life.

Maybe it was the rocky year in religion that was 1987 (to wit, Jim Bakker committing adultery then stealing his parishoners' money, Jimmy Swaggart doing his infamous "I have sinned" sermon, and Oral Roberts proclaiming he'd die unless he raised eight million for the missionary arm of his ministry in three months) but it was made for television. Since then, the message television has sent about religion has been mostly negative or mixed. There are noteworthy exceptions such as Touched by an Angel and 7th Heaven, but those and a few others are the rare exceptions.

On that note, the bipartisan Parents' Television Council has produced their latest study on the religion messages that the boob tube put out last season, and theirs is an especially sour one this year. I have some gripes with the PTC and its methodology, not to mention its founder Brent Bozell III. But the study put out the other day is very alarming. For the most part, all religions got a bum rap -- not just Islam as one might naturally expect, but Judaism and Christianity as well. Bottom line: 34% of references to religion were positive, 35% were negative, 27% were mixed (in that a character in question tried to play with God both ways) and 4% were "undetermined."

I'm as much for free speech as the next person. It's one of the bedrocks of democracy. However, I also believe that television while waning still does have an influence on people and that it needs to show the consequences of doing right versus doing wrong. There is nothing wrong with expressing one's faith in a positive light or doing well by others. In these times, we need people from both sides of the aisle who lead by example both in the characters they play as well as in their personal lives. Shows like Little House on the Prairie, Bewitched and even All in the Family have stood the test of time because all dealt with the issues of cause and effect. Today, the top rated shows deal much more with gore (such as CSI and its offspring) or the paranormal (e.g. Ghost Whisperer) and spend very little time discussing faith or lack thereof. Surely, cops and mediums have personal relationships with God as well. Why are they deemed irrelevant to plotlines?

One can't really say that TV and by extension music are the cause of all the ills of society, of course. But with less religion has come a greater level of cynicism and I think that may be partly the explanation why divorce and other family problems are so prevalent. As religion and families came to be ridiculed on television, problems in ordinary households also increased.

That's not to say all religious families stick together -- the divorce rate compared to non-religious clans actually runs about the same on average. But the healing process, I think, is much more accelerated after a breakdown if there is faith. I know my faith saved me from insanity when my parents divorced. I also think having a common faith leads to unions based on common sense rather than convenience, and much better sex.

We're supposed to be created in the image of God. It seems more and more we're trying to be the carbon copy of the media. If it's okay for two-time mother Britney Spears to flash her labia in public (not shown on TV of course, but mentioned with references to YouTube) that sends a message to parents and to kids that it's okay to go around town with unfurnished basements -- and tops. That's not to say she would not have done what she did even if religion was tops with television; of course she would have but she would be called for what she is rather than just dismissed as a show-off in the post-modern world.

Bottom line: It may be true that Americans have the right to bear arms while Canadians have the right to bear breasts, but just because both are legal doesn't always make it right. In the same way, just because it's legal to burn a flag or to make fun of religion (two rights which I also defend fully) doesn't make them right either.

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Why did the Mounties keep a file on Tommy Douglas

Here's a pleasant way to start the morning: The Mounties hated Tommy Douglas. So much so that they kept a dossier on him dating back to 1939, five years before he became Saskatchewan's first socialist Premier, and kept it up until he died in 1986. Why? They thought he was a closet Communist.

I'm not entirely surprised but pretty disappointed as well. Like most democracies, we keep a deliberate distance between the permanent police and the transient polticians. This ensures law enforcement can act independently and enforce the law and not the whims of whoever happens to be inhabiting the corner office. It's only fair and appropriate that the cops keep a dossier on potential security threats. But it's another thing to keep a file on someone who wants to change the system through entirely democratic means.

Tommy Douglas was no angel, but his advocacy for nationalized heath care was just part of who he was. As Premier of Saskachewan, he actually ran a pro-business government, contrary to expectations -- vastly improving the roads and communications networks, for example. He was hardly a bleeding heart either, he actually believed that a government had to be both tough on crime as well as on the causes of crime. Later in his life, he stood up for the refusniks, the Jewish dissidents who were consistently refused exit visas from the Soviet Union. So why would the Red Serge find him a menace?

He stood up for the common person. Just like the Mounties are supposed to do. What were they afraid of -- he was going to disband them if he had ever become Prime Minister? No way that would have happened, given just much importance the RCMP has out West. He would have made sure they had the money to do their job and do it right.

The NDP is no more of a threat to Canadian values than most other parties, except for the Conservatives. Douglas deserved better than that. The Mounties owe his daughter Shirley Douglas and her son Kiefer Sutherland, an apology.

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Time's 2006 Person of the Year is ...

You.

I'm not even going to dignify that.

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Abbas rolls the dice

I guess there's so much a man can take, and it looks like Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has had enough. The successor to Yasser Arafat and the leader of the Fatah faction, Abbas has gotten so fed up with the impasse with Hamas, which controls the Palestinian Assembly, that he has called a snap election and is putting his own job on the line.

Didn't we see this a year ago? Fatah called an early election to consolidate their power in the fractious legislature, and although opinion polls suggested it would get a majority it was Hamas that gained the upper hand. I have to admit that Abbas has guts but if Palestinians think they're having a hard time negotiating with Israel, wait until whoever Hamas is led by this week -- as Israel has a well known policy of assassinating the Hamas leader of the week -- gets the wheel.

Five more years of war. Yikes. Last thing the Middle East needs right now unless the Jewish state has a plan to wipe out Hamas once and for all. Not that Fatah is much better ... but at least Arafat's not around anymore to kick.

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